"Mr. Clerron!"
"Well!"
"May I tell you another thing I don't like in you? a bad habit?"
"As many as you please, provided you won't require me to reform."
"What is the use of telling it, then?"
"But it may be a relief to you. You will have the satisfaction arising from doing your duty. We shall ventilate our opinions, and perhaps come to a better understanding. Go on."
"Well, Sir, I wish you did not smoke so much."
"I don't smoke very much, little Ivy."
"I wish you would not at all. Mamma thinks it is very injurious, and wrong, even. And papa says cigars are bad things."
"Some of them are outrageous. But, my dear, granting your father and mother and yourself to be right, don't you see I am doing more to extirpate the evil than you, with all your principle? I exterminate, destroy, and ruin them at the rate of three a day; while you, I venture to say, never lifted a finger or lighted a spark against them."